This year I have learned to say hello in 10 languages and forget how to say it less than a month later. This isn’t just because I have so much going on it’s because I really have a hard time with languages.
My grammar and spelling can be terrible in English. I took French in high school and cheated on the final exam, and every other assignment. Finally, I put on Facebook a year or so ago that Spanish is the language of the devil because I was so frustrated by it in college and I didn’t see it as important.
I thought these things about languages and then signed up to go on this trip where I would hear a lot of them. With Spanish being one I would hear for 4 months this year. So, I told my self this year, all year long in fact, that I would practice Spanish and be able to speak it when we got to Nicaragua.
Month after month went by and nothing. I had no desire and no real way to do it. Then we got to Malaysia, one month from being in Central America.
I had heard about an app called Duolingo and decided to try it out. At first it was the most frustrating thing. That app made me feel like a 3 year with the questions and the level I was at. I almost gave up on it.
It wasn’t untill we actually set foot in Nicaragua it clicked. I had this desire to communicate, to want to understand what people were saying, to take the burden off one of my teammates who translates frequently for us, and to really see the culture.
I kept doing this duolingo thing with some succes. I also learned words and phrases via worship songs and signs. We left Nicaragua and I had gotten about back to where I was in college, but now I no longer hated this language. My heart was being softened to care about a language that was not my own. I could really see the people for who they are as I began to learn their language. They also saw that I cared as I fumbled through my words.
I would tell kids, in a playful manner, mi es oso (me is bear) and chase them. I could ask for vague directions and buy bread from the little shop by our compound.
Everyone could tell I only knew a little bit of Spanish but I wanted to get to know them so I tried and failed and tried and failed and tried again.
A new post will come in a few days and I will talk about my experience in Honduras, then another in El Salvador, then one for Guatemala and a recap of Central America. This way I can tell individual stories but also share how the Spanish language has softened my heart in supernatural ways.
